Fun and Games
by Hutch-is-gorgeous
Summary: "The Plague" parts one and two related story. Includes some original riddles and phone pranks that I made up.


Thank you, Linda and Erin (lazermonkey on this fanfiction website) for proofreading this story! However, I made some changes since they did, and any mistakes are unintentionally mine.

Please note that in this story Hutch does something illegal to gain some extremely important information from a snitch. I did speak to two policemen to see if this was realistic and they did not know the answer or knew, but couldn't give out the info.

Also, some medical things in this story are definitely not always realistic.

Reviews are very appreciated!

One last thing: To me the episodes "The Plague" parts 1 and 2 look too much like they took place in Los Angeles, so I use LA in this story. Also, this story does not always follow what you saw on TV.

Title: "Fun and Games"

Chapter One

The plague was no fun and games. And here in Los Angeles, California, until Doctors Kaufman and Meredith had come up with an antidote for the plague, they had failed miserably in their attempts to make a cure for the not immediate, but still seriously fast slayer of human lives virus.

A virus that brought on severe physical ailments like pneumonia, critical dehydration, kidney malfunction and liver damage with evidence of massive internal hemorrhage to kill a person in such a brief time. Just like it had done to Jake Donner.

He was Virginia's husband. Both were friends of Starsky and Hutch.

Jake was a fifty-one-year-old police lieutenant with grayish-white hair, Starsky and Hutch were about nineteen years younger.

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Starsky and Hutch were plainclothes cops. With the rank of Detective Sergeant First Class. They no longer worked out of Parker Center, but currently out of Metro Headquarters. Just a couple of days prior to Jake's demise, they had picked the man they sometimes worked side by side with up at the Los Angeles International Airport.

It was the largest and busiest airport in California, and one of the largest international airports in the United States…

Jake was just returning from a tour of employment with Interpol in Europe. Interpol, or ICPO- The International Criminal Police Organization, an intergovernmental organization facilitating international police cooperation. One of the things Jake had said to Starsky and Hutch was, "It was good seeing those Interpol people, but let me tell you something. Nobody over there knows how to make a good hamburger!"

Next, he gave Starsky and Hutch his opinion on how to make one. "Toss into a bowl some 80% fat-free hamburger. Knead into it some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Worcestershire Sauce. Shape the burger into a quarter of a pound patty, then cook the meat all the way done, but don't over-do it. You want the meat juicy, but not so much it makes your buns soggy."

Everyone knew Jake was referring to hamburger buns, Hutch squeezed his butt cheeks with his hands and joked, "My buns are perfectly fine. Thank you very much."

It was un-Hutch-like for him to do and say that, but they got a good laugh out of it, anyway. Jake didn't need to finish telling the rest of the burger recipe as they had decided to go to Huggy's 'The Pits' and get some good burgers there. Although they were soon interrupted from going there, when still inside the airport...

"Thief! Stop! Thief! Ah, come back here!" Hutch, Starsky, and Donner heard another man yell.

The law enforcement officers couldn't see him. So, was the man who had hollered the one who had something stolen from him? Or had he seen the crook steal something from someone else?

What Hutch, Starsky and Donner did eyewitness was a guy who had to be the perp, running, and then pushing someone out of his way in his endeavor to escape out of the airport.

Starsky was the first who took off after him, and right after that Hutch. Having had the same idea as his partner-_It's not gonna hurt anything to help airport security go after this jerk!_

Not that at the time they saw anyone around in that type of uniform. Although just moments ago, to enter the area they needed to meet up with Jake, Starsky and Hutch had to go through a security check. Starsky, and then Hutch, having walked under a strange arch-shaped, space-aged looking X-ray machine that beeped at them.

The uniformed black male and white female security officers telling them to empty their pockets. Starsky pointed at Hutch, "Him?" Then at himself, "Or me?"

"The machine indicates you have a very large object or objects on your person," the woman explained. But the two detectives kidded about it, when the black officer informed them, "That's enough of the fun and games."

There was a bit more interaction between Starsky and Hutch and security. Like they informing them they were just doing their jobs, and then Starsky and Hutch got to go to greet Jake and welcome him home.

Chapter Two

At the airport, Lieutenant Donner had decided to come in on the chase after the thief Starsky and Hutch were still pursuing. And when he did, accidentally ran into a guy holding an attaché case. He didn't know the man was Thomas Callendar, the prince of hitmen.

Donner, as quickly as he could, did though run it through his head, _He's the same guy who as he was passing by Hutch, lightly bumped into him. Happened right after Hutch and Starsky caught up with me from just coming off one of three planes, and without any troubles, had arrived safely at the airport._

What Donner wasn't thinking about was the game, Tag. As in, "Tag! You and Hutchinson are now 'It!' for going to get the plague!"

Donner wasn't thinking such. Not when the man he didn't know was Callendar, didn't look sick at all.

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Eventually, and right outside of Memorial Hospital, one of Roper's henchmen shot Callendar, and from his blood, Doctors Judith Kaufman and Meredith could finally make the antibody to treat the plague, but sadly, only after Jake and others had died from the virus.

Unfortunately, too, the injection of the antibody wasn't working for Hutch as it had done for those a patient in the hospital with the plague. Like the boy Richie Yeager, who saw good improvement after he was given the injection. A few weeks more and he got to go home.

Neither had the antibody done its job on Hutch like they expected it to do as it had for those who had come to the hospital's emergency room with symptoms of the virus.

The injection was also given to anyone else who needed it, and neither did they get sick with the plague. Yet, there continued to be great puzzlement why, after the shot had been given to Hutch, though he hadn't died yet, his liver had hemorrhaged twice.

Starsky or anyone else saying, "Alakazam" and "Shazam" or "Abracadabra," wasn't going to speed things up and get Hutch all better soon and out of the hospital…

Thankfully, the plague wasn't able to get his liver to entirely shut down. But he had to have a blood transfusion each time he was cut open with a scalpel and the area of his liver that had hemorrhaged taken care of, and then his abdomen sewed and stapled back closed.

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There are some very sick people and get a big burst of energy. Making it seem like they will live, only to die shortly thereafter.

With Hutchinson's burst of energy, he suddenly found the strength to notice he was still inside an oxygen tent. The tent, though, was keeping him away from Starsk!

Hutch found himself terrified about it. So, so, so very frightened! The only thing that would take care of his fear was to figure out how to get out of the tent and find him!

Find him.

That was the plan.

Yes! That was his plan!

Paw

Paw

Paw

And pawed some more at the plastic tent enclosure.

Frustrated!

Pawing wasn't working at getting him out of it and noticing the guardrails were down, and not caring who had forgotten to put them back up, he quickly discovered with being so sick, it was a massive struggle to roll out of bed and try to find Starsk.

Immediately feeling the agonizing pain when he landed with an awkward thud on the floor, it was way too soon that he found himself gasping like a fish out of water for much-needed air for his tortured lungs.

"Starsk. Where are you!?" That was so whispered his own ears couldn't even hear the words and taking one big inhalation of the air in the room into his lungs with the intent to say them much louder, a severe and punishing coughing fit instead transpired. Rattling noises then coming out of his pneumonia congested chest.

_Help me, Starsk! I need you! I'm scared! I'm going to die! _He'd found a last straw, a last thread of strength to think such. When just then, Starsky barged into his room and grown men being grown men, occasionally a situation still called for some mothering.

Starsky gathered him into his arms, but only had time to rock him back and forth a few times. Then, with the help of two of the bigger nurses, got Hutch back on the bed, inside the oxygen tent. All the while Starsky telling Hutch, "It's okay, buddy. Starsky's here. You ain't gonna die! You got that? Don't be afraid! I'm here!"

####################################################################################################################################

Chapter Three

Starsky still had to wear a face mask, latex gloves, and a yellow disposable gown over his clothes to visit Hutch. The curly-headed brunet one of those that had been given the shot to keep him from getting the plague. The injection continuing to work fantastic for him.

But for Hutch, later in the afternoon, his fever spiked, and was violently thrashing his arms and legs on the sheets, soaked with sweat. The fever making him so crazed he couldn't be consoled.

Not by anyone's voice or touch, and that included Starsky's.

Or by his mom and dad, who'd been given the injection. But just in case they had an illness, and weren't showing any symptoms yet, for Hutch's sake were wearing the same medical garb as Starsky.

The blond's parents even tried to placate him by putting his childhood patchwork quilt stuffed puppy, with long floppy ears, in bed with him. The stuffed animal one of the presents they had given him for his 2nd birthday and he'd slept with it until he was twelve. But at fifteen, when he was super sick with the flu, was comforted by sleeping with the dog.

Unfortunately, here at Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, Hutch's refusal to have anything to do with the dog wasn't working to make him feel any better and less anxious...

His parents did love him a lot. Never mistreated him. Were extremely proud of him. Even when he'd quit medical college to go to the police academy and not knowing at the time he would become one of the best cops there was. Starsky also one of those cops and he had attended the academy the same time Hutch did.

"I hurt all over!" Hutch didn't have the strength to loudly cry out. Although, those the dearest to him in the hospital isolation room clearly had heard him.

#################################################################

When he'd rolled out of bed and onto the floor, he'd obtained more than a few big bruises. The skin covering his liver still had all the staples, but some essential sutures had gotten pulled out and he was bleeding.

"Sorry folks, but he's going to injure himself more if we don't strap him down now! Nurses! Help me!" the doctor ordered. "Also, help me hook him back up to the IV! He's pulled out the needle!"

In the back of Hutch's mind, he knew that required re-inserting the needle into his arm and he started sobbing uncontrollably in protest of having it done.

He wanted to cry out to not strap him down because if they did, it would only make him feel even more like a trapped animal and inside the tent where those people were inside it too.

When right after they did get him all the way strapped down, he heard someone he didn't know was a physician remark, "Good! We got the needle back in him. Go get a sedative, anyway! Now!"

In the meantime, Hutch's fever continued to rage. He was so hot and then felt the sting of the sedative going into his arm attached to an IV. Felt the sting of the medicine he didn't know was more of an antipyretic (a fever reducer).

Although, even with the sedative, he was still having a horrible time un-tensing his muscles to relax. As somewhere in the back of his troubled mind he was thinking, _No more needles! Monk Phylos, Ben Forest, no more!_ And trying to think of some way to get out of the straps and then feeling the sedative he had been given finally kick in.

He passed out from it, and then it was quickly off to surgery to be sewed back up.

######################################

Over a half month later and wide awake, Hutch continued to be in the hospital and had to spend most of it in bed. It was what he had to do. Just one of the many consequences of being a victim of the hardhearted, unkind, horrible, cruel, mean, and awful plague that had assaulted, abused, and attacked his body. And though not in a sexual way, had also violated him.

All those descriptive words, some people would say, were redundant in that all weren't needed to say how bad having the plague was.

Then again, maybe all were required when it might've been better if he'd been shot. Four or five bullets having plowed their way into some of the more crucial to living areas of his body. Yet, doctors all over the world were used to dealing with how to at least start treating people's bullet wounds and help them hopefully live.

Doctor Judith Kaufman and Doctor Meredith from the Disease Control Headquarters in Alabama knew how to attend those wounds, and if their patient died anyway, their family and friends were naturally stricken with grief. But weren't so bewildered of what their friend or family member had died from, but it wasn't the same when they had died from the plague and had shown up in the Bay City Metropolitan Area unexpectantly!

Jake Donner's wife too, continuing to be confused about her beloved Jake's demise.

#######################################################################################################################

Some more time passed, and there was greater puzzlement from those who were treating Hutch and those who loved him how that after other shots of the antibody had been given to him, though he still hadn't died yet, he was still a patient at Memorial Hospital.

His abdominal organ- his spleen- involved in the production and removal of blood cells in most vertebrates and forming part of the immune system, because of the plague, had to be surgically removed.

Though presently the outer layers of his skin didn't bear any stitches or staples from the liver and spleen surgeries, the scarred flesh was highly observable to anyone with two or even one good eye. The scarred areas were red and super sore, and when they healed all the way, they would still always be ugly and sometimes mess with his self-esteem.

Daily, Hutch had to have a kidney dialysis treatment. Hooking his penis back up to a urine catheter again was out of the question. Because doing that would give him a severe urinary infection on top of everything else.

But despite everything that had gone so, so, so very wrong with him, eventually there had been some improvement made. True, anyone around him still needed to gown up and wear a face mask and latex medical gloves to keep him from getting germs from them, but he had been taken out of the tent and didn't need to be put back in it, or require that like when he'd had the surgeries, an endotracheal tube be put in his mouth and down his windpipe, while a ventilator machine delivered oxygen to his lungs and carried away carbon dioxide. Lowering the effort it took for him to breathe.

Then some days later more improvement. Even if he still needed oxygen from a heavy aluminum tank able to withstand strict and demanding use and wear. Size E, it was the largest oxygen tank there was. And something that he knew needed to be switched out for a new one when the oxygen got too low.

##############################################################################################################

When more days passed by, the blond cop still needed to stay in the hospital. On the other hand, he no longer needed kidney dialysis and could go to the toilet and with assistance walking to it.

Though with the lengthy tubing line attached to the oxygen tank, some of the line wrapped over his ears, it wasn't that, but the nasal cannula prong in each nostril that often made his nose tickle and itch.

Too many times it made him want to just go ahead and yank out and for good those prongs! But right now they weren't bothering him and in bed, Starsky and he taking turns asking each other riddles. Ones they made up instead of coming out of a store-bought book.

Doing the riddle thing was something, that for now, was a fun thing to do. His room only had two windows doing the asking each other the riddles thing also gave Hutch something to do other than to look out of them.

Plus, he had grown sick and tired of re-looking, re-looking, and looking again at his movie and other magazines. He couldn't handle working anymore on what were supposed to be entertaining and fun word search and crossword puzzles books. Not when there was a nerve underneath each eye that made the area twitch too much when he tried to do those types of books for any amount of time.

"Now where was I, Starsk? Okay, here's one. What kind of animal smokes marijuana?"

"You. You smoked marijuana!"

"What!?"

"You smoked weed."

"Did not!"

"Listen here, Blondie! It's a long story, but ya smoked and what ended up being a couple of excellent quality joints. Had to for that snitch Montell to tell you some extremely important info on where we could find some seriously bad dudes. Ones for a long, long, long time were evading being captured by the police, including us. Okay, so ya were so high it was funny! I'm surprised you didn't throw up everywhere! But then before I could stop it, ya jumped into a cab and I followed it in my Torino. Knew because of the drug you had a bad case of the munchies and with the extra heavy traffic lost track of what direction the cab was heading to get ya some snacks. Finally, caught ya and red-handed at Vinnie's Gym of all places! In the locker room stuffing big handfuls of Frosted Corn Flakes and Fruit Loops in your mouth, and knowing how much ya usually hate sugar going into your bod, was trying to wrestle the cereal away from ya. Then I lost my grip on ya, ya were still on the pot high and running and jumping around in the locker room in your determination to stay away from me. Vinnie thought for sure ya had lost your mind. I made up a fast fib about your behavior so ya didn't lose your gym membership."

At the hospital, "Oh yeah." Hutch then giggled and said, "How could I ever forget that? But the animal that smokes marijuana 'pot' is a hippo**pot**amus. Better yet, a hippie**pot**amus. Get it? A hippie**pot**amus."

"Not that bad of a riddle, but could've been lots better."

"You think so? Well, I've got another riddle for you, you lousy, rotten, good for nothing..." Hutch hadn't finished his just kidding around with Starsky, when the slightly shorter man's temper flared. He wasn't always cheerful and optimistic, that some people, for some unknown reason, thought he was…

"Watch what you're saying, knucklehead! Cause first off it ain't your turn to tell a riddle! More importantly, most of the time I'm not here visiting ya, I'm working my tail off! Protecting all kinds of people and at all these different places! That, along with having to use my Torino too much while out patrolling the streets, the back alleys, and wherever else the police dispatcher has me going to! And for your information, this whole week I'm only averaging four hours of shut-eye per night!"

"Too bad! All I've had to do is to stay here in this room! Mostly in this 'stupid' hospital bed, being bored silly! Plus, this whole week, I have had no sleep at all!" Hutch then deflated. "Oh, forget it," he said in a much softer voice when what he'd yelled at Starsky had lost its importance. Still, the adrenaline coursing through Hutch's veins hadn't yet caught up with his now pleasant attitude.

Taking in a big breath of oxygen from the cannula prongs in his nostrils to calm down to 'nothing', the fight-or-flight hormone secreted by his adrenal glands, even with the oxygen tank and the prongs filling his lungs like they were supposed to, he got hit with something that was incredibly painful! It was tying his chest into knots. Like how it did in that other isolation room where he ended up sending Starsky away to look for Thomas Callendar, instead of staying there with him like he wanted Starsk to do if circumstances had been different.

Here in the isolation room he was in now, "Oh God! Oh God!" Hutch cried out, and though no stranger to swearing, he wasn't swearing, but praying for relief from this torture having returned to his chest.

" It hurts...It hurts...Oh God! Thanks...for… being... here... an'... holdin…my hands... Starsk!... Oh God!" Followed by a long groan, and further alarming the two.

"Hutch!" Starsky had already screamed his name and had pressed the nurse's call button. As soon as someone answered it, he shouted, "Hutch is having problems! Hunt down his doctor and whatever else doc you can find. Drag em into the room by their hair if ya have to!"

Weeks ago, doctors Judith Kauffman and Meredith had returned to Alabama to work at the main building for the Center for Disease Control and right now, Hutch was trembling like crazy and most of his body soaked to the max with sweat was anyhow trying to get not just his but Starsk's fear and anxiety under control."Wait!" he managed to get out of his mouth. Then, stopping shaking and testing out another inhalation of air from the cannula prongs in his nostrils, he exhaled, saying, "You can let go of my hands now."

Starsky kept a hold of them, anyway. A means of apologizing for his outburst of anger.

As he was still wearing the latex gloves and there was no skin to skin physical contact, Hutch anyhow eagerly allowed the hand holding, and didn't try to break it. Some of it his way of expressing how sorry he was for having snapped at Starsky just because he had had no sleep all week. Then, after an ample amount of time had passed, they continued to take comfort in their close-knit friendship. After that, Starsky let go of him, and wiped his latex-gloved hands on his jeans. Had to and dry them off from Hutch's palms that the sick blond could not help stayed wet with all the perspiring he'd done.

See, Starsky had important things to do that required his gloves to not be slippery, and so he didn't drop anything when gathering up some items needed to further take care of his partner. The brunet left standing right next to Hutch's bedside only to get the bar soap, dry towels and washcloths, and other things needed to give Hutch a good sponge bath. Then, afterward, with the help of a male nurse's aide who had popped into the room, they dried Hutch off. Dressed him in a fresh pair of underwear and a hospital gown, and also had him once again lying on the bed with dry sheets and a dry blanket.

Now that they had the patient all cozily settled in bed with his head at an incline just the way he liked it for sitting up and with the sheet and blanket draped up over his long legs, he was ready to tell Starsky, "I know it's not my turn to tell another riddle, but may I?"

"Be my guest."

"Okay, my riddle is what gobbles up all the candy on Halloween?"

Now that Hutch's most recent health scare was thankfully over, Starsky trusted his voice to not tremble when he answered, "Halloween was in October. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day have already passed too, you clown!"

"Who's the clown? Halloween is in October, but it's January, and you brought me a plant potted in a ceramic jack-o'-lantern."

"Okay. You got me on that one on who is the clown. I am. And a tom turkey."

"You're also a tom turkey?"

"No way! But the answer to your riddle of, what gobbles up all the candy on Halloween? - It's a tom turkey and is the same as a gobbler turkey. Or didn't ya know that, college boy?"

"I've known that ever since I was a kid. But though your answer is good, it's a goblin what gobbles up all the candy on Halloween."

It was pushing ten o'clock at night and Hutch asked Starsky, "Have you ever called someone on the phone, asked if their refrigerator was running, and when they said yes tell them they better go catch it?"

"Yep." Starsky then chuckled heartedly at the wonderful memory of having done so. "When I was in my early teens n' still livin' with my ma and younger brother. "Whadda 'bout you?" he asked Hutch.

"Not since I was about the same age as you were. But I'm really tempted to start dialing some phone numbers. Especially those jerks'! And I'm saying that kindly! - Detectives Jackson, Michaels, Stevens, Billings, and Charleston!"

"Not unless you want 'em to get you in big trouble with Internal Affairs, you won't phone prank them!"

"Wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last I've been in that kind of trouble with IA! The same with you, Starsk, so here's the phone!"

He held it up for Starsky to see, then put it down on his lap to stabilize it for Starsky to begin dialing the first number for him.

The phone handset was intentionally placed far enough away from his ear so Starsky could also listen to what was being said on the other end of the line. Hutch purposely didn't even bother trying to disguise his voice and pretend he was a woman with a high-pitched voice.

After the refrigerator prank call with Jackson, Hutch's next victim was hit with another prank phone call classic.

"Hello, is Mr. Wall there, please? "

"There is no Mr. Wall here," Detective Michaels replied.

"Can I speak with Mrs. Wall then? "

"Mrs. Wall does not live here. "

"Well, then can I speak with Henry Wall, please? "

"There is no one here by that name, either! "

"Aren't there any Walls there? "

"No! There are no Walls here!

"Then what's holding up your house?"

"Hutchinson!" Michaels bellowed.

Click! Went Hutch's hospital phone when he hung up.

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The next call went to Stevens, and it was an original prank call that he'd just came up with.

"Is this Stevens?"

"Yeah, what do you want!?" he angrily growled.

"Heard you have tickets to buy to go see Alice in concert."

"Alice, who!?"

"Alice Cooper."

"Why would I have tickets to go see that weirdo!?"

"How about tickets to see, "Alice in Wonderland"?

"She's a complete fruitcake too! Talkin' to a rabbit!"

"What about her conversing with a Cheshire cat?"

"Still a nutcase!" (Grumble, grumble, grumble) "If you ask me, she needs to go someplace better than that Cabrillo State Mental Hospital!"

"Yeah? Like where to? Your place, perhaps?"

"What! Are you out of your mind like she is also!?"

"No. Actually, I thought you were."

"Who is this!? I'm reporting you to the police!"

"You're a policeman," Hutch said so calmly, it infuriated Stevens even more!

"Who is this!? Wait! I recognize your voice! You're Hutchinson!"

"So I am," Hutch said in that same calm voice. And Starsky and he were absolutely certain it was making Stevens so mad that his ears had turned fire-engine red. If at all possible, hot steam was coming out of them!

"Hutchinson! Hutchinson! I'm going to get you for this! Just you wait! I'm reporting you to Internal Affairs, you hear me!? I'm also reporting Starsky, who I know is in your room with you!"

Then Hutch hung up the phone, but still feeling terribly mischievous, he came up with yet another original phone prank with Billings, his victim this time.

"Sorry I woke you, Billings. But I have something important to tell you!"

"Like what!?"

"There's a huge elephant running around in your yard. It escaped from the circus."

"There are no circuses in town. Only tons of stupid first showings of stupid movies!"

"Really! There's an elephant in your yard and oh no!"

"What's wrong!?"

"It's coming toward your house. Heading toward your outdoor swimming pool."

"Don't worry! It'll drown soon after it steps in it and then I can go back to sleep!"

"Uh Uh. 'Cause the elephant just stopped at your nice and cozy hot tub you just bought. Also, the elephant's turned all the way around and looks like it's about ready to download a bunch of manuuuer into the water," Hutch said. Drawing out the word _manure_.

"How do you know that? Aren't you still in the hospital?"

"Yes. But I have a huge telescope that I can see extra far away with."

"Hutchinson, you must not of had your enema today because you're full of feces!"

"No, I'm not. The elephant was, but not anymore! I'm telling you, I really do have a huge telescope! Oh no! Your poor hot tub! Oh, no!"

"Hutchinson!"

Click.

Hutch's last victim, (that was after getting Starsky to shut up from all the laughing he was doing,) was yet another original one and it went like:

"Hi, Detective Charleston. Sorry for calling so late, but I've got a date terribly early in the morning! She wants me to do the Charleston Dance with her. I'm fairly good at dancing to some Disco without stepping on too many toes, and also that thing called the Chicken Dance. But the Charleston is so out of my league… the only place that might be able to teach me it well enough, and so I don't wrench my kneecaps completely out of their sockets, is The Ginger Evans Dance Studio. They don't open until noon. I'd ask Starsky to teach me the Charleston Dance, but he's away somewhere doing who only knows what. Probably the Tango or dipping some poor lady he's dancing with and making them suffer with his 'If you've got it flaunt it' line! - Although, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know how to do the Charleston, anyway."

Hutch let out a disappointed sigh, then inquired, "How 'bout you, Detective Charleston? Can you teach me how to do The Charleston Dance? And well enough so I don't hurt my date or myself and make a complete fool out of me?"

"You're talking about that dance from the 20's. I wasn't born yet and ain't interested in learning how to do it to teach anyone," Detective Charleston, with a big nose, said dryly.

"What about your pillow? Can it teach it to me?"

"It's an inanimate object, Hutchinson."

"So, it can't teach me how to do the Charleston Dance either? Is that what you're saying? Well, how about the Chattanooga Choo Choo Swing Dance? "

"Aren't you still in the hospital?"

"Yeah. In Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga! A city in southeastern Tennessee. Is set along the Tennessee River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains."

"Hutchinson! I'm tired and I don't need a geography lesson from you!"

In the meantime, Starsky was on the floor, rolling around, one hand on his chest to keep it from busting wide open from laughing so hard. The other hand clamped tightly over his mouth to keep Detective Charleston from hearing him in the background and allowing Hutch to continue with his prank phone call.

"Chattanooga! About a two-hour drive from Nashville, Tennessee. About another 20 hours to Colorado's the Royal Gorge wooden bridge. It's a suspension bridge and swings too and is too dangerous to do the Chattanooga Swing Dance on! By the way, have you ever been to Tennessee or Colorado? And what about Charleston, West Virginia? About 420 miles and a seven hour drive from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I'm at?"

"Wait! You're in Memorial Hospital here in Los Angeles! Hutchinson! Hutchinson! Talk to me or I swear I'll…"

"Yes?" Hutch said, then hung up so he could bust out laughing along with his best friend and who hadn't yet died from a heart attack from the blond's phone prank antics.

After the fun and games of doing the prank phone calls were over, Hutch was finally tired enough he slept for two days straight. The next week he was released into Starsky's care at the brunet's apartment. A visiting nurse only coming every other day to check into how things were going with Hutch.

The End.


End file.
